Posted on 08/30/2005 10:10:45 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
It is with heavy heart I write this...
I have finally reconnected with my best friend who is a paramedic who was sent from Georgia 2 days ago to Gulf Port, Mississippi before the hurricane hit.
He just reached me within the last 10 mins via emergency cell phone to tell me he was alive.
Thousands of bodies have been discovered throughout Mississippi in Gulf Port, Waveland,Hancock County,Bay of St.Louis.
They are hanging in trees and they are pulling them out 30 at a time. Entire families found drowned in their homes and washing up on shore.
The stories he could tell me were brief. National Guard is on the scene and arresting anyone seen on the streets.
The numbers are staggering and what I have been told tonight will shake people to their foundation as the numbers will be coming out in the next 24-hours of just how many people have actually perished in these and 3 other beach communities.
More to follow....
Hi Quix,
When the Biblical size of this hit me the first freeper I thought of was you.
I was going to go do a search on your posts to read what your comments have been.
Shock has not led me to do that just yet.
For the indonesian tsunami, initial reports were about 50k dead. I think the final number was about 500k.
Ping to post 324.
Can anyone help?
In that piece on MSNBC they were saying that all the tourists got out and that there were about 28k regular residents of Biloxi, of those approx. 30% evacuated. As I think of the video we have been seeing of Biloxi there have not been that many people around. There would have been 20K+/- people left.
Heh, all our emergency response will be in that region (LA/MS/AL). It has already begun to wreak havoc on the oil market... and will soon trickle down to the economy. We are wounded, and no one is paying attention to terrorism right now. UBL/Zawahri already gave us our final warning before the next attack as far as most experts are concerned. IF they have people in wait, this would be a very opportune moment to make a big hit. The key is it would have to be big, but we already saw they seem to focus their biggest on the U.S.
Prayer does change things.
Especially sacrificial, earnest, servant-hearted prayer.
Some of the predictions about a New Or hurricane a year or so ago mentioned God's displeasure with the voodoo in the area as well as a lot of other demonic forces facilitating routine goings on there.
What do I know. Never been there and never studied much about the area.
Father in heaven, have mercy.
well, it takes a while to replace trunked radio systems....I think everything west of Kenner on the La. State system is gone.
Putting up temp cell towers is a lot quicker....that is what I heard on the SATERN net this afternoon...(Salvation Army)
There is also supposed to be 270 hams on the air soon.....mostly shadowing the Red Cross shelters/locations (240 of them) so you are going to have more information flow....
There was ONE ham in New Orleans today on the air....on battery power....
God help us.
We need to be ever vigilent right NOW.
ping
Well right now the priority isn't exactly counting the dead, but saving the living. Plenty of time to do the counting after that.
I think nearly all the FEMA people are in the Gulf Coast...they said 220 managers....
In most cases, it wasn't the hurricane that killed them, it was the huge surge of water that came AFTER the hurricane that killed them.
We don't know the numbers yet, so don't get your friends worked up until we know for sure.
Basically, I think a lot of the people in MS and AL thought they were not the target of the hurricane because all you heard on the news was NO. That may have lulled a lot of people into thinking they would be OK.
From what I saw of the coverage a few hours before landfall, most of the outbound lanes had been cleared by then.
They were saying that most who remained behind, simply either didn't have a vehicle, couldn't afford the gas, were wheelchair bound, or had other disabilities that kept them from leaving.
And I doubt many thought at all that the fourth most powerful storm ever to hit the US was heading their way...
There were similar images after Hurricane Andrew, and that was responsible for all of 26 deaths directly (3 in the Bahamas) and 65 deaths total. Hurricane Hugo slammed Charleston head on as a Category 4, and killed 'merely' 57 people directly. I'm still quite skeptical of the notion that Katrina has killed at least 2000 people in Mississippi (to qualify as "thousands").
Material from New York Times must be linked and excerpted.
Ah yes. I posted I wanted those C-130's to take folks out last Saturday. Better to take them out before rather than after is my motto. After might be in body bags.
Actually, I saw one pic today of a body lying in what looked like either mud or sand. Not sure if it was on the yahoo news site or some other site.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.